Recently, systems useful for traveling by vehicle have been proposed for accessing databases from in-vehicle terminals to acquire necessary information.
For example, in the information transfer system for vehicles in Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. Hei 4-261576, a system is disclosed where a user connects to a center station by calling the center as needed, and receives and then stores or displays information at the vehicle after retrieving the necessary information. As a result, transmitting a vehicle position and final location enables maps, traffic information, and livelihood information for the region to be easily obtained.
However, when this sort of system is used to obtain information and plan a specific itinerary, there are often instances, after a final location has been decided, where one desires to know what sort of service facilities are available in the vicinity of a route from a start location to the final location. In a particular example, when a trip is not for business but for sight-seeing and therefore not only for reaching a final location, it becomes possible to plan a versatile and efficient itinerary if it is known beforehand what types of facilities are available along a route. In this sort of instance, planning an itinerary was heretofore troublesome and time consuming since tasks involved specifying a region from a service access menu, then confirming service facilities in that region.